by E. C. Tubb
“Maybe,” said Brett, “the Thalassians didn’t have beards. Which may be why he wears one. Maybe—I’ll see.”
Gently and respectfully but very firmly, he lifted the girl’s right hand to his chin. She had already stared at his fingers. Now she grabbed at his beard. Johnny’s beard was no more than half an inch long but she pulled it. Hard.
She called in an excited, agitated voice to the bearded man whose leg was now in splints. Then she addressed Brett, pouring out a flood of unintelligible phrases. Halliday looked on with a cynical relief.
“She seems now,” he observed, “to be neither notably ferocious nor remarkably afraid. I suspect that if you turn her loose she will probably signal for help. I only hope she’ll explain that we aren’t Thalassians and that we have five fingers and pullable beards! I’d never have guessed that the way to make friends with these people was shoot at an atom bomb and let my fingers be counted and my whiskers pulled!”
“Yes,” said Johnny absorbedly. He loosened his grip on the girl’s wrists. She looked at him with bright, still-surprised eyes. She looked pleased, too.
“Carstairs!” fumed Halliday. “See if you can ask her how the hell human beings got out here—were here when back home they were hunting mammoths—if she’s human—talk to her and find out what we’ve got to know or go crazy! They can’t come from Earth! Where did they come from?”
“I’m—getting ready to ask now,” said Brett.
He fumbled in his pocket and found the locket he’d picked up on Firing Plaza One. He handed it to the girl. She exclaimed, and called something to the bearded man. He grunted, staring at the hands and beards of the members of the Expedition and plainly making painful but drastic readjustments of all his previous opinions. The girl looked back at Brett, expectant. He beamed suddenly. She smiled back.
He tapped himself on the chest.
“Brett,” he said.
She cocked her head on one side, puzzled. Then she brightened. She tapped him on the chest.
“Br-r-rette!” she said happily.
Communication between theoretically intelligent beings of two different star systems had begun.
THE EINSTEIN-ROSEN HUNTER-GATHERER SOCIETY, by George S. Walker
A light spring rain fell in Mount Tabor Park. After midnight, the only light filtering through the rain came from the city around the park and the lamps around the reservoirs. For an instant, a black sphere two meters in diameter hovered in a clearing. It exploded with a clap of thunder that shook water high into the air from surrounding evergreen trees.
A person dropped to the ground from where the sphere had been, crouched to peer through the rain in all directions, then ran deeper into the forest.
* * * *
Justin was in the room he called the feed-and-breed room when the outer door to his office opened with a chime. He frantically pushed the small animal he was holding back into its cage. Tossing his long black hair back from his forehead, he stepped out of the room and shut the door behind him.
A young blonde in a camouflage sweatsuit smiled at him. She stood in front of the workbench he used as his reception counter. In her arms she held a very broken-looking notebook PC.
“Can you fix this?”
“Umm…” The laptop looked like it had been hit by a truck. The young woman, about his age, was pretty.
“Your sign downstairs said Computer Consulting and Repairs,” she said.
“Some are more repairable than others.”
“When I turn it on, it beeps a bunch of times.”
“That’s a POST death beep. Power On Self Test.”
“Oh.” She looked disappointed.
“Do you need the data off the hard drive? I might be able to recover that.”
She handed him her laptop.
“How did this happen?”
“I sort of dropped it.”
“Off a building?” Both hinges were broken and the LCD glass was cracked. The ribbon cable between the clamshell halves was exposed.
Something fell with a crash in the feed-and-breed room.
“Excuse me for a second,” said Justin. He strode to the door and opened it partway, blocking her view.
One of the birdlike dragons, the one he’d just put in its cage, flew out.
Justin’s head whirled to look at the woman. Her jaw had dropped, and she stared at the little creature flapping around the room on leathery wings. Damn.
“I’ve never seen…” the woman breathed.
“Just like the Discovery Channel,” Justin said, hoping she thought they were common, and not an endangered species. All he needed was for a total stranger to report him to the feds for importing and raising exotics.
“What is it?”
“Draco patagonius. It’s not mine,” he lied. “I’m pet-sitting for a friend.”
“It’s from Patagonia? Is this one just a hatchling? It’s not much bigger than a sparrow.”
“No, it’s a year old.” He tried to entice it to land on his arm.
It fluttered around the room, finally landing on the workbench right in front of the woman. Its pale green neck arched up toward her face, the tongue flickering in and out.
“It’s sooo cute. Does it breathe fire?”
“Of course not. But he bites.”
“What does he eat?”
“Besides fingers? Cockroaches are a favorite.”
Smaug’s wings were folded up now, and he hopped on top of the broken computer, prying at the keys with the claws at the front of his wings.
“Stop that!” said Justin. He caught Smaug and held him carefully with both hands so he couldn’t fly away.
“Don’t take him away,” she said. “I want to look.”
“You’ve really never seen one before?”
She shook her head. “I’m from Michigan.”
There’s no National Geographics in Michigan? he thought. No zoos? It was like not knowing about bats.
She peered at the little dragon he held, which regarded her with yellow reptilian eyes. Smaug tried to scratch Justin with his hind claws.
“Can I touch him?” she asked.
Justin nodded, and she gently stroked Smaug’s scaly skin. The dragon stared at her as if hypnotized. His pink tongue flicked in and out of his mouth.
“How can there be dragons?” she whispered, barely audible.
“What?”
“It flies like a bird. It’s not just a gliding lizard. I wonder…I wonder if your friend would sell him to me.”
“No! I mean, I’m sure he wouldn’t. He’s not even supposed to be letting me keep it.”
“Oh.”
She continued petting the dragon, and Justin studied her face. She seemed to have forgotten about her laptop.
“I suppose there are books about them, videos, stickers, plush toys, eh?” she said.
“Of course. Hard to believe you don’t know about them.”
“I thought they were mythical.”
“Well, that, too. St. George and the Dragon, Chinese dragons…”
“Disney’s Sleeping Beauty,” she continued for him. “Beowulf, The Hobbit…”
He nodded. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
“Michigan.”
“The Michigan That Time Forgot?”
“Something like that.”
“Welcome to Portland. What’s your name?”
“Buttercup. And you’re Justin. I read the building directory before I climbed the stairs. It looks like you live here, too.”
“Yeah, it cuts expenses. Would you like me to recover your hard drive, Buttercup?”
“No, I need the computer working again.”
“Oh. Well, sorry I couldn’t help you, but you’ll be better off with a new laptop anyway.”
“Eh? No, I want you to fix it. Or take a look at it, at least. And talk to your friend about this little guy. I really, really want him. Just see what you can do, and I’ll come back late afternoon, O.K.?”
He gave h
er a look of disbelief. It was nearly noon.
“Thanks, Justin. You’re wonderful.”
* * * *
Buttercup smiled at him as she came in around four PM. Justin had made sure his dragons were locked up this time.
“It’s a stolen laptop,” he told her. “The serial number’s been flagged.”
She swallowed. “I didn’t steal it.”
“Maybe not. Maybe you pulled it out of a dumpster on your way to see me. Did you know you left your USB drive plugged into it?”
“Eh? Did I?”
“It’s more than a USB drive. Do you know what happened when I plugged it into one of my computers?”
“You looked at all my files?”
“No. I think it looked at all of mine.”
“Really?”
“Who do you work for?” he asked. “Customs? Fish and Wildlife?”
“I didn’t know about your dragons when I came in here.”
“Then where did you get the USB drive?”
“Michigan.”
He handed her back her laptop. “I think our business here is done.”
She unplugged the USB drive and put it in her purse, but made no move to leave. “What if you only had three days to find a way to save the world?”
“What?”
“This is day one.”
“What does this have to do with me?”
“You’re the one who knows how.”
“Boy, have you got the wrong guy.”
“You’re not Justin?”
“Not your Justin.”
“That’s for sure, eh?” She opened her purse. “Can you take a picture of me before I go, just to prove I was here?”
He eyed her skeptically as she handed him a little Kodak. He glanced at the front: 20X Optical Zoom, NiteVision. There was no flash. The lens had an iridescent look, like a closeup of an insect’s eye. He turned the camera toward her and pressed the telephoto button. It was like looking through a telescope, but brighter. He could see every pore on her skin.
“What the hell kind of lens is this?”
“An origami lens. Prismatic. You’ve never seen one?”
“You get this in dragon-free Michigan?”
She nodded. “Just press the button on top.”
“I know how to use a camera.”
She smiled for the picture.
“Three days?” he said.
She nodded solemnly and walked out the door.
He wished he’d erased her USB drive.
* * * *
Around 2 AM the next morning, Justin’s door buzzer rang. Repeatedly. Groggily, he went to the door and opened it.
“Can I sleep here?” asked Buttercup.
“What?” He was still half-asleep.
“On your reception couch.” She pointed.
“Do you know what time it is?”
“Day two.”
“Why are you doing this to me?”
“I just need a place to spend the night.”
“There’s a motel less than a mile from here.”
“I don’t have any money.”
“Don’t you know anyone else in Portland?”
“Please, Justin.”
She was soaking wet from the rain outside. He stepped aside to let her in.
“Don’t steal anything,” he said.
“I’m not that kind of person.”
“I don’t know what kind of person you are.” He went to get her a towel. “Don’t they know about umbrellas in Michigan?”
* * * *
When his alarm went off the next morning, he heard the shower running. He tiptoed out to the reception area and looked around, but her purse was nowhere in sight. He wanted to look at her camera again.
When Buttercup came out of his bathroom, she was wearing the same sweatsuit as the day before. It was still damp.
“Did you sleep in those clothes?”
“No. I wrung them out and slept in the nude.”
Justin had a short coughing fit. “Don’t you have a shopping cart out on the street somewhere?”
“I left all my designer gowns in Michigan.”
“Uh-huh. Help yourself to breakfast while I shower.”
“I don’t eat.”
“What, you’re an android?”
“Your food might poison me.”
“Is that what they taught you in the asylum?”
He showered. When he came out, she was sitting at one of his computers. She turned around guiltily.
“Looking for something?” he asked.
“A way to save the world.”
She was on the portable electronics page of amazon.com.
“By shopping?”
She closed the browser. “That’s Plan B.”
He went to the kitchen to fix a bagel for breakfast. “Sure I can’t get you anything?”
“Bottled water is the only thing that’s safe.”
He tossed her one. “What happens in two days?”
“Your life becomes Buttercup-free.”
“No, I mean the world.”
“It doesn’t end yet. That’s just how long I have here to find a solution.”
“How does it end? Locusts?”
“No. MSDs.”
“Michigan School Districts?”
“Matter Surpluses and Deficits.”
“And I’m supposed to have the solution?”
She shook her head. “You’re too clueless.”
He thought Buttercup was the clueless one.
“Want to sell me your dragon?” she asked.
“You don’t have any money. Trade for your camera?”
She shook her head. “I need it.”
“I’ll throw in one of mine.”
“Yours are useless. Your JPEGs aren’t the same.”
“What? JPEG is an international standard.”
“We do things differently in Michigan.”
Justin laughed. “Let me plug yours in. I’ll print the picture I took of you yesterday.”
She took the camera out of her purse.
He fished through his cables till he found one that fit her camera and plugged it in. File Manager listed 427 JPEG files on her camera. He tried to open one.
Unsupported Graphic Format.
He looked at her. She gave him a wry smile and took her camera back.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Buttercup.”
“Buttercup is a Powerpuff Girl. No one names their kid after a cartoon character.”
She shrugged. “When do you feed your friend’s dragon?”
“After breakfast.”
“Can I watch?”
Whoever she worked for, it certainly wasn’t Fish and Wildlife. “I guess so.”
After finishing his bagel, he unlocked the feed-and-breed room. The lights inside were on Patagonian time—it was midday there.
Buttercup stared at the huge cages. “You have four of them!”
“My friend has four.”
“Right. Justin has zero dragons in zero cages.” She took out her camera. “Where are the cockroaches?”
The dragons clung to the sides of their cages as he began fixing their breakfast. “Funny thing, landlords don’t like cockroach farms.”
“So what are you feeding them?”
“Gourmet cat food with supplements. And pet store crickets twice a week. They prefer the crickets.”
“Yum.”
Justin had a bizarre thought that maybe, back home in Michigan, crickets and cockroaches were what Buttercup ate. Maybe that was why Michigan had no dragons.
He opened the cages, and the little dragons flew out with a flutter of leathery wings. They landed on their four feeding perches, craning their necks expectantly. Buttercup took photos as he fed them.
“Tell me about the end of the world,” he said.
“Imagine you’re in a circus,” she said. “There’s a trapeze swinging back and forth. You know the swing period and how to catch it. But sometimes,
unpredictably, a gorilla jumps on or off. What do you do?”
“Transfer to the juggling act.”
“The gorillas are everywhere.”
He gave her a puzzled look. “Why are we talking about gorillas?”
“Because the truth requires much more math. Plus you’d think I was crazy.”
“I already think you’re crazy.”
“Harmless crazy or needs-to-be-locked-up crazy?”
“Do you need to be locked up?”
“If I get locked up, that brings the end of the world that much closer. At least, the end of Portland. That would be bad.”
The dragons watched Buttercup warily as they ate. When they finished, Justin had more trouble than usual getting them back in their cages, because Buttercup was helping.
Outside the feed-and-breed room, he asked, “What’s your agenda for day two?”
“Trespassing in forbidden places, seeing forbidden sights. Maybe a little window-shopping.”
“You can spend the night again if you want.”
“Maybe. You didn’t seem too happy to see me last night.”
After she left, he checked to see if she’d stolen anything. If she had, it wasn’t obvious. He checked his computer. Unlike the day before, with her USB drive, there was no sign anyone had accessed his files. But she’d been busy on the internet. No purchases with his credit cards, but she’d taken a whirlwind tour of the planet. Not looking for gorillas, though. Most of the links came up “404: not found”, but there were a number for Toronto and Antarctica.
* * * *
Buttercup didn’t show up again till nearly eleven PM.
“What do you know about an Einstein-Rosen bridge?” she asked after he let her in.
“Portland has lots of bridges, but I don’t know that one. Have you tried Mapquest?”
She sighed. “How can you be so different from Justin?”
“The gorilla-wrestling Justin of your dreams? The one who knows how to save the world?”
“He wasn’t a dream.”
“Is this bridge you lost the one to Antarctica?”
“What do you know about Antarctica?” she asked suspiciously.
“It used to have lots of penguins. Oh, wait. You don’t know about penguins in Michigan.”
“We have penguins.”
“In Michigan?”
“No. I live in Michigan. I work in Antarctica.”